Interior Migrations (2014-2018) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary multimedia art project that addresses global migration and memory in Canada. Led by artist Gu Xiong and filmmaker Mark Harris, the project reaches out to migrant workers and communities who have relocated to Canada from China, Mexico, and Jamaica. The project seeks to rethink the very nature of memory in light of the unique and culturally specific experiences of migrant populations. The four-year project will produce a series of site-specific art installations, a documentary film, a website, and print media.
Project Leaders
Gu Xiong is a Chinese-Canadian artist dedicated to migrant issues and global flows of culture, ideas, and identity. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. He is a professor in the department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia. Before immigrating to Canada, he lived as a migrant “sent-down” worker during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Mark Jonathan Harris is a three-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, award-winning children’s novelist, and a Distinguished Professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. His work explores contentious issues around race, social activism, and migrant labor.
Team
Yu Gu, filmmaker and director
Scott Jason Drucker, director of photography
Nick Grossman, cameraman
April Liu, art historian specializing in Asian art
Jethro Au, photo editor, media worker
Nick Loewen, web designer
Pouria Assadipour, web designer
Mahdi Ghodsi, web designer
Jing Jing Zhao, Chinese-English translator
Chen Xin, Chinese-English translator
Elizabeath Villalva, Spanish-English translator
Pekhna Mahajan, Spanish-English translator
Jennifer Schvimer, Spanish-English translator
Christopher Mills, Assistant
Ruben Zuniga, interview facilitator in British Columbia
Jane Andres, interview facilitator in Ontario
Interior Migrations is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and has been approved by a Research Ethics Board at UBC. The artist gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as his research team.